Software Engineer

About the Team

The Software Engineering team is responsible for designing and delivering end-to-end product features that span on-device software and cloud services. We work across device runtimes, mobile/embedded apps, and backend services to create fast, reliable experiences that balance real-world constraints with great UX.

About the Role

As a Software Engineer , you will design and build product features across the entire stack—from device runtimes to backend services. You’ll collaborate with designers, hardware teams, and fellow engineers to define and prototype solutions, then take them from zero-to-one into production.

We’re looking for people who have strong product sense, understand the trade-offs between on-device and cloud systems, and care deeply about delivering exceptional user experiences.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA . We use a hybrid work model of four days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Collaborate with designers and product teams to create intuitive, performant experiences.

• Architect and build APIs, data flows, and sync mechanisms that operate under real-world device and network constraints.

• Simplify, refine, and optimize experiences and performance across client and server.

• Balance near-term iteration speed with long-term health and quality.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• 7+ years of professional software engineering, with experience across device and server systems.

• Have a strong understanding of on-device constraints (memory, power, offline) and cloud systems (latency, scalability).

• Have a track record of building and shipping user-facing products end-to-end.

• Enjoy working from zero-to-one on early-stage products and iterating quickly based on feedback.

• Bring experience collaborating closely with designers and cross-functional teams.

• (Nice to have) Have experience with hardware-cloud integrations, applied AI tools, mobile or embedded systems, or modern backend frameworks.

• (Nice to have) Background in instrumentation, analytics, and performance optimization.

• (Nice to have) Strong design collaboration and product instincts.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement .

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form . No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link .

At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.